User blog:A84hg/The 50 Scariest UK PIF's/Part 5
10. ' ' Don't Leave Your Children Alone (1979) Scare Factor: 2spooky4me Truly disturbing PIF from '79, which is really unsettling. I don't like the thought of this child lying in bed, all alone in the dark. You half expect her eyes to snap open and her to gasp, or something along those lines. It creeps me out. 9. Scream - The Samaritans (1989) Scare Factor: 2spooky4me Creepy Samaritans cinema PIF that shows us some woman talking - but instead of speech, we get some weird guitar noises or something. Then the woman breaks down in tears and the cameraman slowly backs away, thinking that this woman is fucked up. Oh, and she's trapped in a corner, too. Weird. It's rather good, and very unsettling. Maybe even just a bit scary. A couple of jump scares in this one. Those noises come without warning. Note the very unusual red 15 certificate. The BBFC were not right during this period. 8. George and Betty (2003) Scare Factor: 2spooky4me Horrible PIF from the mid- to late- '90s showing an old couple burning themselves to death with their electric blanket. Again using old people as a weapon in PIFs, trying to show that they are stupid and don't know anything - as suggested in this PIF, with them having some unusual romantic evening and then burning to death. Perhaps we should use kids instead; they are only growing up and don't know everything, so they would actually be quite useful in PIFs. Although it would be pretty disturbing to see a kid burn to death because of an old dodgy electric blanket. 7. Iceberg - AIDS (1987) Scare Factor: 2spooky4me December 1 is World AIDS Day. The first one was in 1988. They put it there to ride a wave of post-election ennui in the media. Clearly it worked because here we are. And here is John Hurt from a year before that, bellowing at you about condoms between First Class with Debbie Greenwood and the news. These nakedly apocalyptic PIFs ran in 1987 on all channels in order to terrify people into wearing condoms and not sharing their works. They were devised by Sammy Harari and directed - or the iceberg one was, the monolith might not have been - by, of all people, Nicholas Roeg, who certainly knows how to put the wind up you. These PIFs are probably responsible for this whole channel being here now. They terrified me as a kid. They showed up unexpectedly between programmes on BBC1, which was usually friendly and personable and free of such as advertising and angry Governmental commands (except in early November). But on random occasions, that were completely impossible to predict, the edifice cracked and raw horror bled out, ushered into position by John Hurt. I had literally no idea what Hurt was on about - his words flew over my head like they were filled with helium, he might as well have been speaking Martian - but they involved death and a disease that, as I understood it, I WOULD inevitably contract and then die of, probably in pain. Having said all that, the thing that really put the seal on it for me wasn't the explicitly doomed closing shot, but the freeze-frame afterwards and "that was a Public Information Film". I'm not sure why that terrified me perhaps more than the exploding volcano, but there it is. I remember the leaflet as well: spartan, faintly alien in design, with headings in ultra-kerned, blue, lowercase serif. It was like the signs on the walls of a hospital ward in the future. "DON'T AID AIDS" it said on the back, desperately clinging on to the half-arsed original slogan before the blunter, more angry and far less cute "DON'T DIE OF IGNORANCE" came along. 6. Monolith - AIDS (1987) Scare Factor: 2spooky4me PIF from 1987 for the Don't Die of Ignorance AIDS campaign. Quite strange and creepy. For some reason it starts with an explosion; then ends with some bloke marking out AIDS in a a wall or something or nothing, with a leaflet falling to the ground. Then a bouquet of flowers. Rather disturbing. This still haunts the unlucky few to have watched it during its original TV run. 5. The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water (1973) Scare Factor: 2spooky4me Apparently this is the scariest PIF of all time. In my eyes, it's quite tame. There are a lot worse out there. Features the Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water, who spends all his time drowning kids in rivers. His one weakness? Sensible children. He has no power over them... I do like this, but I still think it's a little overrated in terms of terror. Regardless, it's one of the best PIFs ever made. Just look at how many people remember it. 4. Eyes - Drinking & Driving Wrecks Lives (1992) Scare Factor: 2spooky4me Well, here it is. The horrifying "Drinking and Driving Wrecks Lives" PIF, "Eyes". Who would have thought that this disturbing little PIF caused such a large amount of ejaculation to spray from me? Well, maybe not something quite as graphic as that, but it was close. Oh, boy, was it close. Anyway, the PIF itself is what you would expect from these masters of horror. It consists of a sole shot of a dying woman, with paramedics trying in vain to resuscitate her, while the Bastard who killed her insists that he didn't mean it. You don't see him, but you still hate him. The harrowing effects of this PIF will live on for ever. The eyes of that dead girl will haunt your nightmares until you die. Most likely, it's what you'll see before you bite the dust yourself. 3. AIDS: You Know the Risks (1988) Scare Factor: 3spooky5me Probably the scariest AIDS PIF ever. You got the terrifying screeching that plays throughout the PIF, and at the end, the music sounds like something right out of a horror movie. The black and white fade at the end doesn't help either. 2. Scavengers - LYNX (1988) Scare Factor: 3spooky5me Horrible, disgusting PIF for LYNX - not the fragrance but the animal rights group - from 1985. And it's rated 18 for your sick, viewing pleasure. This cinema PIF acts as a kind of sequel to that Catwalk one from 1985, where some model ejaculates blood from her skirt. How nice. Another follow-up would be the Skinned one, from 1993 or so, which was a three minute PIF - or short film, however you like to put it - which shows a woman with a skinned animal around her neck. Very uplifting. These people must be gore lovers to produce these nasty piles of shit. It's just awful and disgusting to watch. So, barf bags at the ready... We're finally here, the scariest PIF ever made! But before we go on, I gotta tell you something. There has been no PIF that has shaken me up like the one you're about to see. It's very shocking and distressing. 1. Sunday Lunch - CrimeStoppers (2006) Scare Factor: Welcome to Hell Die Hard 6: Die Harder with a Vengeance then Live Free and Go Fuck Yourself on a Nice Day. This shows a cheery, smiling mother making breakfast for her vast family of children and then pulling out a gun and shooting one of them in the head, with blood all over the table and splattering over the other kids. Then a voiceover says that keeping quiet about gun crime is as bad as shooting the victim yourself. To stop it from being banned completely, the PIF could only be shown in cinemas for 18-certificate films. Category:Blog posts